Some of the maxis memories have weird descriptions. Or maybe you'd just like them different. Fortunately it's easy to change. This tutorial assumes some basic experience with SimPE. Anyone could do this, but you'll find it easier to go along if you've used SimPE to do some basic stuff before. By basic I mean anything really, like editing a Sims name, or looking at their memories.

I'm sure there may be easier methods than what I do, but this is how I do it when I want to change the description of a memory.

Locating the memory you want to edit
We what need is to find some kind of identification of the memory, something that will help us find it in the game code. I like groups, because we can filter packages by groups which is very handy to isolate just the parts we want from the thousands of not relevant things. The memory text is held in it's CTSS (catalog description): We want to find the CTSS and extract it so we can edit it. All memories have their CTSS (and other parts) in the objects.package. So the first thing you need to do, is to locate the objects.package for your latest EP.

Go to wherever your latest EP is installed, and then once you opened that folder, you'll find objects package in TSData/Res/Objects/objects.package. Once you've located it, copy the file and put it somewhere else. Then use the copy to look at things. The reason it's best to make a copy is because then it doesn't matter if you accidentally edit something in the file. If you accidentally edit the original, you could potentially mess with your game and we don't want that. So make a copy, and only use the copy, okay? Good!

Now we've got the objects package. We are going to use the filter function to filter away all the information we don't want, and only see the information relevant to the memory we want to edit. To do that, we need the group ID of the memory. I have two methods for finding the memory I want.

Option 1
The OBJD of the memory has a name that starts with Memory. So if we think we'll be able to guess the name, we can find the group by looking at the OBJDs in objects.package.

1. Open objects.package
2. In resource tree-part of the window, on the left, scroll down and click Object Data (OBJD) in the list. This will filter the things you see in resource list to only show OBJDs.
3. At the top of the resource list, click "Name". This will sort the OBJD's in alphabetical order.
4. Scroll down the list until you get to the OBJD's called Memory.
5. You'll notice some memories are named by EP, and that some of them are also sorted into further subgroups. Base game memories are not named EP-anything, so they will most likely come after the EP memories. Sometimes the names make sense, like hobby memories named hobby enthusiasm, which makes them sort of easy to locate this way. Sometimes they make less sense, like the memory Sims get when they get robbed, which is called Memory - Wealth - Burglar.
6. If you manage to find an OBJD with a name that makes you think it's the memory you want, you click on it. You'll see it appear in the Plugin view on the bottom half of the SimPE window. At the bottom, there are tabs. You are currently on plugin view. Click the one called Resource.
7. Once you are in the resource tab, copy the string of numbers/letters in the Group box.
8. Next we're going to paste the copied string in the filter box. If you don't have a filter box, you may need to open it. If there's a tab in the upper right area that says Filter Resources, click it and the filter boxes will appear. It might also be displaying resource actions, if so you need to switch to filter resources, by clicking filter resources at the bottom of the resource actions window. I've marked them out in the pictures below.
Once you've got the filters box open, you paste the string of numbers/letters into the group box, and click set right below it.
9. Once you click set, you'll notice the only thing you see in resource list is the OBJD that you got the string from. That means you've successfully filtered the contents of the objects package to only display that specific group. We want the CTSS so we can edit it, so in the resource tree on the left, click Catalog Descriptions (CTSS).
10. You'll now see a catalog description resource in the resource list. Click it, and in the bottom of the SimPE window, click the plugin view tab again to see what the CTSS contains. Does the text match the memory you wanted to edit? Great, that means you've got the right one.
11. Right click the catalog description resource in the resource list, and select Extract. Save it somewhere on your computer. DO NOT CHANGE THE NAME! If you change the name, SimPE will not recognize it later on. Keep the name. If you want to be able to remember what it is, name a folder and extract it to that folder. Once you've extracted the CTSS, move on to editing memory section below.

Option 2
Were you unable to find the memory you wanted by guessing names of OBJDs? Sometimes it's kind of a pain to try and figure out what kind of name EA decided to give it, and in those situations we can use a second method. We can find the name of the OBJD by using SimPE to look at the inventory of a Sim that has the memory we want to edit. To make it easier on yourself, you can use Aaroneous' Memory Manipulator to give the memory to a Sim of your choice, that way you know right where to look.

Step 1. Open SimPE Step 2. At the top of the window, select Tools -> Neighborhood -> Neighborhood Browser.
Step 3. In the pop up window that opens, select the hood the Sim lives in
Step 4. When the hood finishes loading, either use resource tree on the left and scroll down to Neighborhood/Memory. Click it, then click the Neighborhood/Memory resource that appears in resource list. When Neighborhood/Memory tab opens in plugin view below, use drop down menu to select the household the Sim lives in, then select the Sim from the faces that appear.
Step 4A. If you don't want go directly to neighborhood memory, open Tools -> Neighborhood -> Sim Browser. Locate the Sim with the memory in the Sim browser window that opened. Once the Sim has loaded, click the More-button on the right side. This will open a drop down menu, select "Open Memories". This will take you to Neighborhood/Memory and select the Sim for you.
Step 5. Navigate through the Sims memory panel until you find the memory you want.
Step 6. Click the memory, and look at the name-box below. The name of the memory's OBJD will appear in { }.
Step 7. Now follow instructions in option 1 to navigate to the OBJD of that memory in objects.package.

Editing the memory text
You've found your memory, and you've extracted the CTSS. Great! Now we need to add it to a package so we can edit it.

About CTSS: When we extract resources from SimPE, we get two files. Both of those are necessary, so don't delete them. And as mentioned above, do not edit the names of the files.

Step 1. Open SimPE Step 2. Either go to File -> New, or click the new-button.
Step 3. In Resource List, right click the white space and select Add. If you get no options when you right click, you haven't pressed New. Go back to step 2.
Step 4. A pop-up window will open. Navigate to where you saved when you extracted CTSS. You'll see there's only one file visible, even though we got two when we extracted. This is normal. Select the file that is visible, and click Open.
Step 5. You now have a package with the CTSS in it. Click it, so that the plugin view shows contents.
Step 6. Now, the CTSS contains all the languages that Sims comes in. You need to edit the string for the language your game is installed in. Use the drop down menu to select your language. Please note that English comes in US English (called English in SimPE) and English (UK), so if you have UK English you need to edit the UK string or your changes won't show in your game.
Step 7. The title of the memory is line 0x0000, and the text shown below is 0x0001. Change them to whatever it is you want them to say. If the memory is supposed to contain the name of a Sim (either the Sim getting the memory, or some other Sim that it's about), you write $Subject where the name is supposed to be.
Step 8. Once you've edited the text in the language you want, click the commit button on the right.
Step 9. Save your package.
Step 10. Place in your downloads folder. Voila, you've default replaced the text of your memory!

If you plan to edit more than one memory, you could add all of the CTSS' in the same package, or you could make a package for each one. It's really up to you.

Hope that helps! Sorry about the low number of photos, I wasn't up for making a detailed step by step with pictures for each step. If something is unclear you are welcome to ask and I'm sure someone, either me or someone else, will help you out.

If you have questions on how to use SimPE or WW, you're welcome to PM me.

Interesting I rarely use finder, usually doesn't help much, so I'd never tried the STR one. But you're right, that does work. I'll add instructions to the post when I have time. And thanks for mentioning it, while testing it I realized that I forgot to mention that some memories have two CTSS.

If you have questions on how to use SimPE or WW, you're welcome to PM me.